Agentic Coding or perhaps Agentic Software Development is far more real and appropriate . Calling it engineering is better left to those wanting to impress family and peers.
What is agentic engineering?
81–90 of 109 posts
Re: What is agentic engineering?
#82[flagged]
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Re: What is agentic engineering?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you review 50%? Or 10%? Or only 1%, is it not vibe coding yet? Where is the borderline?
I think the borderline is when you take responsibility for the code, and stop blaming the LLM for any mistakes. That's the level of responsibility I want to see from people using LLMs in a professional context. I want them to take full ownership of the changes they are producing.
Sounds good, however the bar is probably too far and far too idealistic.
The effects of vibecoding destroys trust inside teams and orgs, between engineers.
Re: What is agentic engineering?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you review 50%? Or 10%? Or only 1%, is it not vibe coding yet? Where is the borderline?
I think the borderline is when you take responsibility for the code, and stop blaming the LLM for any mistakes. That's the level of responsibility I want to see from people using LLMs in a professional context. I want them to take full ownership of the changes they are producing.
And are you not seeing that level of responsibility?
Re: What is agentic engineering?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the borderline is when you take responsibility for the code, and stop blaming the LLM for any mistakes. That's the level of responsibility I want to see from people using LLMs in a professional context. I want them to take full ownership of the changes they are producing.
I don't blame the agent for mistakes in my vibe coded personal software, it's always my fault. To me it's like this: 80%+: You don't understand the codebase. Correctness is ensured through manual testing and asking the agent to find bugs. You're only concerned with outcomes, the code is sloppy. 50%: You understand the structure of the codebase, you are skimming changes in your session, but correctness is still ensure…
I feel like there’s one more dimension. For me, 95%+ of code that I ship has been written (i.e. typed out) by a LLM, but the architecture and structure, down to method and variable names, is mine, and completely my responsibility.
Re: What is agentic engineering?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the borderline is when you take responsibility for the code, and stop blaming the LLM for any mistakes. That's the level of responsibility I want to see from people using LLMs in a professional context. I want them to take full ownership of the changes they are producing.
And are you not seeing that level of responsibility?
I'm trying to demonstrate that in my own work, but from the comments I see in places like Hacker News there are a lot of people who aren't.
I wrote a note about that here: https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-pattern...
Re: What is agentic engineering?
#87[dead]
Re: What is agentic engineering?
#88I don't think we should be making this distinction. We're still engaged in software engineering. This isn't a new discipline, it's a new technique. We're still using testing, requirements gathering, etc. to ensure we've produced the correct product and that the product is correct. Just with more automation.
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Re: What is agentic engineering?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, if you defer all your coding decisions to agents, then you're not doing engineering at all. You don't say you're doing "contractor engineering" when you pay some folks to write your app for you. At that point, you are squarely in the management field.
If you're producing a technological artifact and you are ensuring it has certain properties while working within certain constraints, then in my mind you're engineering and it's a question of the degree of rigor. Engineers in the "hard engineering" fields (eg mechanical engineers, civil engineers) a rule don't build the things they design, they spend a lot of time managing/working with contractors.
> If you're producing a technological artifact and you are ensuring it has certain properties while working within certain constraints, then in my mind you're engineering
This covers every level of management in tech companies.
Re: What is agentic engineering?
#90I’ve been using the term “agentic coding” more often, because I am always shy to claim that our field rises to the level of the engineers that build bridges and rockets. I’m happy to use “agentic engineering” however, and if Simon coins it, it just might stick. :) Thanks for sharing your best practices, Simon!
I think there are a lot of reasons to use your suggested alternative title. One example being that in a lot of countries such as Canada, it's illegal to use the title Engineer without holding a PEng designation from the countries/provinces engineering body, eg: https://www.egbc.ca/complaints-discipline/unauthorized-pract...